Closing the Fairness-Practice Gap [Abstract]

Ethics & International Affairs, Volume 3 (1989)

"My argument in this essay is that the fairness principle can be
justified on the basis of an ethical perspective that stresses the importance of
consequences in judging human action, and that it has far-reaching implications
not just for evaluating state policy but for the design of international
institutions." Keohane's utilitarian perspective seeks to establish
generalizable principles of morality for a framework of normative moral rules by
which to construct a foreign policy for international cooperation. The author
argues that all governments are morally obliged to support international
institutions that advocate crosscultural and global public goods to advance the
fairness principle. The international community is bound by Western
understandings of distributive justice, universal human rights, and indisputable
national sovereignty.